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Monday, May 23, 2011

Yesterday I taught an intro to Pewter workshop for a lovely group of people up here in Seattle Washington. (I was introduced to them by a client that has become a friend- who is now hosting me at their gorgeous home on Camano island- just north of Seattle)

Me and the Northwest Creative Spirits guild

I really enjoy teaching- especially when I can delve into more detail with a subject. We spent the entire day on Pewter- and we could have gone for another few days easily- The entire group got a taste of working with pewter, and left the class excited to go try some stuff on their own.

demonstrating simple pewter casting

I'm hoping to bring pewter to more curious metalsmiths in the future!
Do you have a class that is curious about working with pewter? I'd be happy to schedule a workshop!
ciao- Maureen BZ aka "your Pewter tutor" :-)

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

next weekend I'm one of the participants in the Society of North American Goldsmith's trunk show-
And I've been wondering how much experimental work I should be bringing to the trunk show-

I'll bring my one of a kind work, which is interesting and "sale-able" but the multi media stuff is pretty risky.....and I love it! in fact- I'm really feeling a move away from my more traditional metalsmithing work towards my more eclectic sculptural pieces.

Hey, I figure if I don't show it at the SNAG conference (which will be loaded with creative people with developed aesthetics) where would I consider showing it? It's kind of a leap- but I'm going to go for it- at the very least I'll be the girl with the crazy stuff on her table....(and I'm sure I won't be the only one)Safe schmafe, I'm laying it on the line at the:SNAG Member Trunk Show and Sale
at the Westin, Seattle1900 5th Avenue, Seattle, WAMay 29th from 3PM until 5PMin conjunction with the 2011 SNAG Conference - showroom location off main lobby

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Hi there Metalsmiths -
is your email box flooded with new emails from all of your new groups? mine is!
As much as I love my groups and getting mail I find swimming through those emails in order to find "real" emails a bit of a mess, so I've decided to turn off the email notices from a few of my groups.....Don't worry- you will still get Facebook notifications- they just won't send stuff to your email account :-)sometimes you just have to tweak things a bit...

Adjusting your email and notification settings- with the "upgraded" groups
here's the way to do it:
for those who are part of this group or would like to be, but don't want your mailboxes flooded with notifications...

go to Edit Settings(top left of this page) and deselect Email notifications. then save settings

You're not done yet!- in order for you to really turn them off you need to jump through a few more hoops......

4. there you should go to another window that has a list of your groups- The groups that you want to get emails from , check the box- the groups that you do not want to get emails from Uncheck the box.

5. at this point you need to click "save settings" and that should do the trick...until Facebook changes around more things, which will drive me crazy once again....

Please forgive me if you have had too many notifications from this group- it is Facebook's doing- I'm simply the humble metalsmithing messenger :-), trying hard not to get to the point of introducing my Mac to "Mr Hammer...LOL

re: the archiving of your already established group....(I just went through this with my group of over 1200 members, Metalsmiths Unite)

if you are an administrator of a "group to be archived"
I just wanted to let you know how the whole thing worked out for us- because you may save yourself a lot of hassle in the long run.
last week:

we were informed that our page was to be archived

and told that if we didn't update that we would lose all of our members and most of our recent posts.

then we weren't given an "update" button for our group- only a link to making a new page.

Not having a date of when they would archive the page led me to believe it could happen at any time- and that I would lose the membership and information that our group had accumulated over the past 3 years....

So......I made a new group- invited my friends, notified all the members of the old group....and started re-establishing the community.....

a week went by....and guess what? Facebook then added an "upgrade" button to the original group- making all of the re-organization absolutely a waste of time, and essentially dividing my "metalsmiths Unite" group. (Which is now cut in two- as "Metalsmiths Unite" and Metalsmiths Unite 2.0)

Needless to say I am really irked by the way Facebook fumbled this transition- if they had given a schedule to the upcoming archiving I wouldn't have been afraid of losing my group, and if they had put an upgrade button on the group in the first place I wouldn't now be sitting on a divided group.
And I know for a fact that there are many many more groups out there that are going through the same thing-
it's as if Facebook had NO CLUE as to how to transition to a new format- and no clue as to haw to inform their users how to make the transition.

They yelled "Fire" into a crowded theater....waited as people panicked, blew out the candle then opened the exit doors

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Here is my piece for April's "Box a Month" (BAM!)
Hand fabricated embossed pewter box with tooled leather interior. 4" x 5" x 5".
The surface embellishment is roller printed from a pattern I created this Christmas while spending the holidays with family in Florence Italy. (I couldn't keep myself away from my makeshift studio that I maintain at our apartment)
This piece represents the refinement and rustic nature of the center of Florence- (Minus the graffiti) I will be making one with graffiti soon, I'm sure.